Into The Desert
by The Raider
Summary: Set sometime in early Season 6. Buffy goes out into the desert by herself on a spirit journey in an attempt to center herself after being ripped out of Heaven. Short Novella
1. Entering The Desert

**This is just an idea I had bouncing around in my head after someone on a message board I'm a part of brought up that she would like to have seen something like this happen on the show. So, I finally just decided to get off my lazy butt and write it. This is probably going to be really sort, so most likely nothing more than 5 or 6 chapters. As usual, I hope you all enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy or any of the other characters. They belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.**

* * *

**Chapter 1**

The pack on her back beginning to feel slightly heavier as she continued to walk through the desert sands, Buffy squinted at the rock formations in the distance. Even though she had come prepared, just as Giles had said she had needed to, it was still an entirely different thing to think about what you _wanted_ to think you needed to survive in the desert, and what you _actually_ needed. Xander had wanted to help her, but she had, needless to say, assured him that his help wasn't needed.

Pushing her sunglasses up in order to properly see the colors around her, the vampire Slayer continued to squint, the sun above her beating down upon everything in sight. As she finally reached the relative coolness of shade, she eased herself down into the cool sand, breathing a sigh of relief as she slid the heavy back-pack off of her shoulders. Taking off her sunglasses as well, she was silent as she looked out across the landscape consisting of nothing more than rocks and sand.

He hadn't said exactly when she would come back, only that she would return when she had been imparted with a new part of wisdom. Sighing, she closed her eyes and wondered exactly what it was that she was supposed to learn on this 'Spirit Guest' that he had suggested to her. It had been one of the last things he had suggested to her before he had departed to return to his coven in England. Her resurrection had dragged him back, and she felt slightly guilty about that, possibly even more for _living. _Wasn't that always how it went? Everyone's problems always stemmed from her or her actions. The two things were always connected, even when they tried to deny it.

* * *

The fire continued to crackle in front of her as she stared up at the stars, the night air beginning to grow slightly cold. Wrapping the blanket tighter around her shoulders, Buffy moved her gaze onto the still roaring fire that she had managed to build with the stray logs that had lain scattered across the desert floor. The bright light gave her some comfort against the dark that was her only company besides the stars. Grabbing the pen from where it laid in her jacket pocket, she pulled out the mini notebook she had pressed in with all the rest of her survival gear and slowly began to doodle, simply letting her mind go off in every possible direction.

It felt strange to finally be alone, considering that her friends and sister had been with her ever since she had come back, ever since they had brought her back from... Heaven. She hadn't shared that fact with anyone except Spike, not even sure why she had trusted the vampire with that information. She had wanted to tell Angel, but he wasn't here. He was in Los Angeles, living his own undead life now, being a hero to those that needed it most…and she was still _here_. Alone, guarding everyone from the demons attracted to the Hellmouth.

And that's how it had been for at least two years after she had watched him leave, his only goodbye being a simple look, a pair of locked eyes, and a slow turn. They had tried to stay away from each other after that, but fate kept pushing them together as if it found it amusing to watch as they forced themselves to stay away from each other after everything was said and done. It hurt her each time she came close to him, so close to what she had seen almost every night in her dreams, to be so close to the subject of every inch of passion she held inside her heart.

It hurt worse than anything she had ever felt.

Shaking her head as if that would dislodge the thought from her mind, she looked down at the doodles she had been drawing un-subconsciously with her pen. There were numerous clouds dotting the paper, but there were occasional crosses or stars scattered about here and there. All things that could either be taken as a symbol of death or of Heaven. Frowning, she again fought back the urge to remember what it had felt like to be dead, to be completely at peace with herself. She had saved the world, and she had finally been able to rest.

And now, here she was, back in a world filled with so much pain that she could barely stand to look at it. Every morning when she awoke from dreams filled with those feelings of peace and security, she found the same problems and pain that she wanted to escape from so desperately. There were times in the middle of the night when she couldn't stand them anymore, and simply cried, letting the hard exterior she worked so hard at putting up fall apart into millions of pieces. And every day she would go back to being the Buffy, Vampire Slayer and savior of the world. That's really all she felt like to everyone else.

Ripping the paper from the notebook, she crumbled it up into a ball and tossed it into the fire, almost smiling as she watched the doodles erupt into bright flames. As she watched the paper rapidly turn black and crumble into ashes, she was reminded of how her high school in Los Angeles had looked as the gym had been engulfed in flames, the vampires inside having stood no chance at surviving. There had, of course, been severe consequences from that single action, leading her to leave home for almost four months, seeing Las Vegas with Pike until he had left her, the first of the many heart-aches she had endured over the course of her life as the Slayer, and finally, the stay at the 'Hospital' that her parents had seen fit to put her into.

Pike, Angel, Parker, Riley, all of them she had felt something for…Parker of course receiving the least of it, considering what he had done to her during her Freshman year. She had loved Riley, but she hadn't been truly _in_ love with him, and she realized that now, once he had left her for somewhere else in the world. She had no idea where he was now, but she prayed that he was safe. He deserved to be happy, even if it wasn't her that he took comfort in. Their time together had been an enjoyable one, and she would always hold it close to her heart.

And then there was Angel. He was always there, deep inside her heart and thoughts, like some ghost that she couldn't vanquish. He had been her first true love, her first…_first_, and he had been the first person that she had killed and had loved. She had sent him into Hell to save the world, at the cost of nearly losing her heart. For three agonizing months, she had lived alone in Los Angeles, living on whatever she could scrape up as a waitress. And every night, she had dreamed of him. Of how he had held her and told her that he loved her. Most were simply memories, but a few felt truly real, as if he were still with her in her dreams. And she'd suffer through the day without him, the pain from seeing and hearing him say her name only seconds before he'd been killed haunting her as she made her rounds through the restaurant.

And when she had come back to Sunnydale, realizing that she couldn't abandon her friends and duty, all of the wounds had been reopened every time she walked past a place where they had fought together, had talked, or had kissed. When she had finally been able to start to come to grips with what had happened, he had reappeared, changing everything into a new direction, one that had made them feel awkward all over again. Every time she looked at him, she couldn't help but think of the torture Angelus had inflected on all of them, but at the same time, she couldn't not love him, the emotion having grown too large in her heart to be completely destroyed.

And then, as quickly as he had reappeared in her life, he was gone, claiming that he wanted her to have a normal life in a town that was atop a Hellmouth. Even now she smiled at the irony of the entire situation. Pain and grief laced the smile, but it was a smile nevertheless. A _normal_ life. She was a _Slayer_, the one girl chosen in all the world. She wasn't entitled to have a normal life. She had given up on that entire notion years ago, when she had realized that she probably wouldn't live to be twenty-five. And that had been true for at least three months, but now here she was, living and breathing once again. She had cheated death twice now.

Would it ever stop? All this pain she kept feeling inside over what had happened, crawling out of her grave being the worst of it. She hadn't understood what was going on, being trapped inside something underground with hardly any air left. She remembered how fast her heart had been beating when she had started punching at the roof of the casket, the rush of adrenaline going through her system being more than anything she had ever felt before. The single thought running through her mind had been that she had to get out of there, and up to where there was more air. That had been her single purpose at that moment.

And now, here she was. In the middle of Hell itself, living, surviving, fighting, all the while wondering when she would finally just rest. Would it ever end? Angel had promised her once that it would, and that he would be there with her when it did. Did he really mean what he had said, that he would be there with her at the end, holding her just to assure her that it had really ended? Closing her eyes, she tried to fight off the thoughts that the fighting would never stop, and when it did, it would be simply because she had died, not because she had saved the world one last time. Everyone she had ever known would live on and remember her, but she wouldn't be there to see them grow old, she herself would never have the children she had occasionally dreamed about.

Everything would end one way or another, but whether she lived to see it would remain to be seen.

Throwing a few more logs onto the fire, she watched the sparks fly up into the black night before they disappeared, burning themselves out completely without the constant support of the fire that had gave birth to them. Wrapping the blanket tighter around her body, she laid down onto her side and closed her eyes, wanting to get some sleep while the fire continued to offer her warmth and comfort.


	2. It Hurts To Breathe

**Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy or any other Buffyverse characters. They belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Muttering something underneath her breath, Buffy nevertheless remained asleep, the dream she was having overwhelming her senses. The fire beside her had begun to burn itself out, its supply of fresh wood have faded away once the Slayer had fallen asleep. The desert was otherwise completely silent, the moon above all of it shining down upon the landscape with its hollow light. There wasn't a single animal moving anywhere across the now cool sands, a strange thing considering how a desert's ecosystem generally worked. But then again, with the desert located so close to the Hellmouth, anything normal wasn't to be expected. Things that seemed normal within Sunnydale's borders were quickly brought under close watch, considering that the minute you trusted something not to be a threat, it quickly became one.

Her mumbling refusing to cease, she tossed and turned, causing the blanket she wore around her shoulders to fall off, leaving her jacket as her own protection against the cold. The fire was in its final death-troughs, its embers glowing only faintly in the dark of the night. Above the deserted landscape, the stars continued to shine brightly.

_It was raining all around her, the heavy drops landing on her in large pools, soaking every inch of her clothing down to her skin. She felt cold, as if she would never be warm again. Taking a few steps through the wet sands, she felt the ground turning to mud beneath her, the dirty substance beginning to come up to her knees. Still, she continued forth, unsure of her destination, but she remembered that it was at least important in some way, as if her life depended on it somehow. _

_Above her, she heard the storm clouds beginning to thunder, the accompanying lightning lighting up the sky with its single white color, almost making the Slayer jump as it all overwhelmed her hearing and eyesight. For a moment, she felt something like fear erupt in her heart, making a small pain scatter throughout her chest. And then, as quickly as it had appeared, it disappeared, leaving her still standing in knee-deep mud. _

_For a moment, she felt calm, at peace with herself, perhaps even happy where she was. There was no pain here, no cry for help from an innocent in danger of being killed, and no-one to call her the Slayer. It was just herself, and for some reason, she felt happier being alone like this, despite the mud, despite the cold, despite the rain, despite the storm raging overhead. _

_It reminded her of what it was like to be dead. To actually feel something besides pain and grief. _

_"Buffy." She heard her name ring out, interrupting all of her thoughts and making her turn around to see the voice's owner. Inside her chest, she felt her heart skip a beat, then two, then three, and then finally it returned to its normal pace, despite the person she now found herself looking at. _

_He was dressed completely in black, just as he had always been when he had been around her. He had always been that way, dressing as if he had to separate himself from her. She wore light colors, he wore the thing that killed those colors. She had taken to wearing the same color, if only to avoid looking like a simple high-school girl when she was with him. Nothing had ever made sense when she had been with him, and she realized that now, so far away from the simple High-School Slayer she had been less than three years ago. _

_"Angel." She said his name as if she were unsure that he was really here. He stood a few feet away from her, offering her a small smile as a response, but otherwise remaining completely still. It was as if he had become a statue, a silent reminder of the past that she carried with her every single day she got up. A past she couldn't escape from. She knew that from personal experience, considering that for three months, she had lived in L.A. on her own, barely making ends meet, and simply trying to forget who she even was. It hadn't worked, and once she had realized that, she had come back, managing to get past the awkwardness that had lingered in the air for weeks after she had arrived on her mother's door-step._

_"I missed you." He finally said, echoing the words he had said to her only a few months after her first death, at the hands of the Master. _

_"I missed you too."_

_"You don't want to be here." He said with a simple tone, as if he were simply saying hello to her. _

_"No, I don't. Everything hurts. Even breathing hurts worse than it did when I died." She answered, feeling something wet starting to flow down her cheek that wasn't rain. "I don't want to feel anything anymore."_

_"It's hard, it hurts, and its every day." He echoed her words again to her, when she had tried to convince him to come back into the mansion after the First had driven him to nearly kill himself by letting the Sun burn him._

_"I don't want to suffer through it anymore."_

_"You have to."_

_"Why?"_

_"Because it's what you do. When everyone else gives up, you stand strong. You always have, even when you feel like breaking down inside. Because you stand to inspire those around you, to make them fight on even in the face of death."_

_"Because it's who you are."_

Opening her eyes, Buffy found herself staring at the dying fire, the cold wind striking against her form as it lay on the sands. Shivering, she looked around her for the blanket, grabbing it quickly and wrapping it around her slightly freezing form. Reaching over, she grabbed a few more logs and threw them on to the fire, causing more sparks to erupt into the air as the piece impacted onto its ashen brothers. Poking at the bottom of the burned logs with a stick, she kept stirring oxygen into the fire, causing it to slowly begin to burn again, the effect making her smile as the log began to be engulfed in flames. Bringing her knees to her chest, she buried herself in the blanket, and watched the log burn in the orange, red, and yellow flames.

The dream still lingered in her brain, images from it washing her thoughts of anything else. It had all felt so real, the rain landing on her skin, the cold from being soaked to the bone, the feeling of peace she had felt for that single fleeting moment...and then Angel speaking to her, telling her to keep going. It was strange, hearing him echo her own words to her, as if he were some sort of parrot that she had taught to speak. She had tried so hard to convince him that he belonged in this world, that he had been worthy of the love she had felt for him.

And now, he was doing the same thing to her. Granted, in a weird-dreaming sort of way, but still, the effect remained the same.

Looking up at the stars continuing to stand still in the night sky, Buffy smiled as the warmth from the rapidly growing fire began to spread out over her body, forcing the cold she had felt from the night air to disappear. Again, her thoughts otherwise remained completely focused on the dream she had seen and felt so vividly. She had experienced dreams similar to it before, when she had been living in Los Angeles, but it had been so long since one had disturbed her sleep.

Out of everyone, she hadn't been surprised that it had been Angel in the dream, the first love of her heart having taken a prominent role in her dreams before. She had tried to force him out of them before, thinking of anything else but the souled vampire, but no tactic had ever worked. He had always found a way back to her, even when she had finally thought herself free of his memory for a single moment. A skeleton in the closest, a memory you couldn't erase, all of these were descriptions for the way she held his memory.

She wondered how he was right now, living in L.A. with his group, similar to how she had her friends helping her. Was he happy, living somewhere where they couldn't see each other? That was supposed to make it easier, to not see each other and continue on living. She had tried so hard to try and live a normal life, or the closest thing to it that she could possibly have. She had managed to maintain a somewhat stable and happy relationship with Riley, until it had become clear that he couldn't deal with being the weaker of the two, something she couldn't understand. So, she had let him go. It had hurt, and in a way, it would always pain her to think of him, but the deed was done. There was nothing left to do now but move on.

Had he moved on? Had he found someone else where-ever he was now, away from the Hellmouth and all of its demons? She hoped so, hoped that he had been able to put their past behind him and start seeing someone else. He deserved happiness, after all he had done to help her against the very organization that had brought him to Sunnydale, so far away from his home in Iowa. He had fought bravely, and in the end, he had had nothing left but her love. But for some reason, that hadn't been enough for him. He had needed to be the strongest, to be the so-called 'man' of the relationship. Dating a Slayer hadn't been easy on him after his strength had faded after the Initiative program's drugs had worn off on him.

And there had been no-one to replace him in her life, much as there had been no-one to replace Angel. They each had held their own place, a position that was irreplaceable. Not that she had had much time to search, with Glory's search for the Key, Dawn, having only intensified to the point of causing them to flee from their home. The attempted escape hadn't lasted long, and eventually, they had been left with no choice but to turn back and face whatever horrors the Hell-God could conjure against them.

She remembered most what it had been like to die, to jump to her death in order to save the world one-last supposed time. It had felt awful for a moment, and then, every sensation had faded away, leaving her feeling empty, but at the same time, at peace. She had felt like everything she had ever dreamed of feeling was at hand, and that she had finally been given the rest she supposedly deserved. There had not been a single worry in her mind, not a single thought of concern or grief or even confusion. There had only been the single feeling of happiness.

It had been _Heaven_.

Resting her head against her knees, she tried not to cry, remembering how it had felt to be ripped out of that place by force, by Willow's magick, the confusion that she had felt coursing through her mind as she had been forced back into her body. She had thought that it had been Hell, the thing she had walked through after she had been forced to claw her way out of her grave. There had been destroyed buildings, fires that had burned across entire streets, and screams that had coursed through the air. She had seen the robot copy of herself that Spike had commissioned be utterly destroyed.

_"Is this Hell?"_ She had asked Dawn, atop the tower where she had jumped to her death only three short months earlier. Even now she wondered what the answer to that question was. It haunted her every thought of every minute of every day. Had she been ripped out of Heaven, where she had been completely at peace for once in her life, simply to suffer in the closest thing to Hell imaginable? To have to see all of her friends in so much pain, with so many problems that they looked to her to solve, as if she were some kind of God...it made her feel like she was drowning.

Drowning in a pool of pain. Screaming out, but with no-one to hear her.

* * *

_"Buffy?" She heard his voice asking for her, the sound of his voice wrapping her brain in a warmth that made her feel happy, if only for a fleeting moment._

_"Too tired."_

_"You have to keep going." He brought up again, his voice sounding like he was lying next to her in the sands. "For all of us."_

_"It hurts too much."_

_"It's going to. It's going to hurt every day, but you need to keep going. Buffy, you_ need_ to survive."_

_"Why? Why me?"_

_"Do you realize what happened when you died?" He asked, making her shut her eyes as the memories of jumping off the tower came flooding back. "I wanted to stake myself, I wanted to forfeit my life just to see you again. You were my salvation, Buffy, and you were gone."_

_"What did you do?"_

_"I grieved. I stayed up for days and nights, simply looking at a photo of you, remembering how it felt to feel my hands on your face, how it sounded to hear your voice swimming through my ears. How happy you made me feel that one night."_

_"Angel, I made you lose your soul."_

_"It's ok, you didn't mean to." _

_"But _I_ made you evil, I made you become Angelus again. It _was_ all my fault."_

_"No, it wasn't. I don't ever want you to think that."_

_"The truth hurts, doesn't it?" She asked, feeling the guilt of that single night flowing over her for the millionth time. "To know that you did something that got people killed, and you can't even take it back. To have the blood of someone else on your hands and no-matter how hard you try, it never washes away."_

_"I've suffered through it every day. It hurts, it never goes away, but you keep living." He said, causing her to shiver slightly when he laid his fingers gently against her cheek. "You have to keep living."_

_"How? How can I do that when I die every night in my dreams, that I go back to being happy?" She said, her voice beginning to break as she felt tears starting to form along her eye lids. "How can I live when it hurts to even breathe?"_

_"You find something, and you hold onto it. You let it keep you going, let it inspire you to get back up every time something or someone knocks you down and makes you doubt yourself." _

_"What did you choose?"_

_"You." _

Opening her eyes, Buffy let the emotions inside her take over, let the tears fall down her cheek. It hurt to even think about what he had said to her this time, within another dream that had felt so real. She could still feel his fingers on her cheek, reassuring her that he was there for her. That he still _loved_ her.

As sobs escaped from her mouth, she laid back down onto the cool sand, wrapping the blanket around her body as if it made her feel safe. She wished someone was with her now, she wished someone would hold her, to let her know that it was going to be ok after everything she had been through. She wished that her mother or Angel were there with her, that one of them would gather her into their arms and stroke her hair, to calm her down. She wanted someone to take away all of this pain that she felt inside, the pain that made her want to die again, simply to extinguish it.

She wanted someone to understand.


	3. Silence And Echoes

**Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy or any of the other characters. They belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

As the sun reached out across the horizon, casting it's warm glow across the cool sands, the creatures of the desert landscape emerged out of their burrows and shelter, looking forward to beginning the day just as they always had. They were born into this pattern, and they would die knowing no different way of living day-to-day life.

Opening her eyes, Buffy felt the sun falling across her body, the warmth from it shedding away some of the cold that had stuck to her during the night, despite the fire. Giving a groan, she ran a finger through her eye, still feeling utterly exhausted. Sleeping on the sands in the middle of a desert wasn't the greatest way to get the most sleep possible. And then there had been the dreams.

She still couldn't understand exactly why Angel kept appearing in her sleep, or why he kept talking to her and telling her to survive. In some ways, she knew that he would understand why she felt the way she did, but on the other hand, she didn't want to tell him everything, didn't want to let him see her in the weakest state of her life. Would he even recognize her anymore? She could tell that there were times her friends weren't fooled by the cover she put up around herself, so why would Angel even be fooled for one moment?

Getting onto her feet, she felt her bones feeling slightly sore from the position she had slept in. A few specks of sand dotted her dark blue jeans, but she ignored them. There wasn't anyone else out here to judge how dirty her clothes were. In a way, the silence was a friend to her. A chance to simply be allowed to think without worrying about how a particular action would upset someone else. It didn't help that Willow was probably able to hear her thoughts, considering how deep she apparently was into the magicks now, or at least as far as Tara had told her.

In a way, she missed how simple everything had been in High School, when it had simply been wake up, go to school, slay any Vamps she came across, and then repeat. Prevent an apocalypse here and there and it was a typical year atop the Hellmouth. Add onto that the fear of failing finals, but that was beside the point. She had passed them, with Giles help in studying, and after that, it had been three months that had seemed like the world had really come to an end, despite what they had done to stop the Mayor from ascending.

It had all seemed strange, seeing everyone else in the middle of a relationship while she remained single. Single, because Angel had left at the end of the battle. No goodbye, simply a look. She had done her best to put on a brave face and go through the usual bouts of patrolling, Slaying, waiting for her college letter to arrive in the mail. The days had started having a habit of either going extremely slow or extremely fast…with the former having been the most common occurrence.

_Ok, enough, enough, brooding over how sad and depressing my life has been won't make me move any faster. _She thought to herself, grabbing the pack from where it lay next to the fire, and swung the strap over her shoulder. Her feet falling into step, she started her way through the sands, keeping to the relative shade of the overhanging cliffs and sand mounds. Again, getting her entire face filled with sunburn wasn't what the Slayer had in mind when she had come out here.

Again, she enjoyed the silence that was around her, actually stopping for a moment in order to make her boots stop making noise that interrupted the absence of sound. In the distance, the sound of an eagle briefly overtook the air, and then it stopped as quickly as it had begun. Smiling, the Slayer closed her eyes.

It felt good to be alone.

* * *

_The sea was back again, flooding over every surface in sight. As she made her way through the water, the liquid filling up to her waist, she sensed that there was no surface beneath her, and still she continued to walk on something, a slight heat flowing beneath her bare feet. There was nothing else around her, save for the endless ocean. The water itself was cool, but it lacked any other sensation. It didn't move, and remained motionless on the surface, only breaking when Buffy kept moving through it. _

_Angel wasn't anywhere in sight, but she could sense him nearby, watching her, protecting her. Just like he always had. He was still her guardian angel. The cross he had given her was still around her neck at times, and there were some nights where she just held it in her hand, remembering the night he had given it to her. It all seemed so long ago, when she had first went to the School that had later become their effective 'base of operations'. She had known he had been following her, and had easily led him into an ambush._

_He hadn't been angry, only surprised that he hadn't expected it to happen. For the first time in her life, she had seen his smile flashed at her, the action making her feel strange for a moment before she regained her usual posture. They had exchanged a few words, and then had parted ways for that night at least. He had come to her numerous times, offering her cryptic words time and again. _

_Looking around, the Slayer was almost saddened that he hadn't appeared to her yet, as he had done in her other dreams thus far. He had been a fixture, one that she had un-subconsciously looked forward to seeing when she closed her eyes._

_"Buffy." She smiled as she heard his voice calling out to her, the sound of it so far away from where she was. Squinting her eyes, she saw the form of a man on the horizon, his features hidden by the shadows from the clouds overhead. Still, she knew he was there, waiting for her to come to him. Pushing her way through the water surrounding her, Buffy slowly made her way towards him, remaining completely oblivious to the water splashing at her dress. Her entire purpose at that moment was to reach him, and the nothing short of an apocalypse could stop her._

The fire crackling beside her, Buffy buried herself deeper into the blanket as she continued to sleep, her eyes still shut out against the real world as the dream controlled her mind.

_She was closer to him now, his features finally starting to be revealed as her eyes adjusted to the almost non-existent light source above them. He was dressed in his usual black attire, a direct contrast to the pure white dress she had on. They were as they always had been, direct opposites of each other. And yet, those opposites attracted each other, made sparks fly, created feelings. _

_"Angel?" She asked, now standing only a few feet away from him. She smiled, part of her hair sticking to her face as rain started to pour down from above them. Lightning struck once and then disappear, the setting from her previous dream coming back in full force. As she traversed the only remaining few feet between them, she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer to her in a hug. Slowly, she felt his arms wrap around her back, returning the gesture in a slightly awkward fashion._

_"It's alright." He said, feeling her body shaking slightly underneath his grip. Inside, the Slayer was moments away from crying, knowing that there was no-one else around to see her break down the outer shell she had put up for all to see. _

_"No, it's not." She said, her voice slightly muffled as she buried her face into his jacket._

_"You're not going to get through this if you keep running."_

_"But it…" She started before he grabbed her shoulders and made her look him in the eyes._

_"I know it hurts, but you _can_ get through it. You can't die from feeling the pain you are. You're stronger than that."_

_"How do you know?" She asked, the tears still falling from her eyes. "How can you know how much it hurts to have been at peace and to have it ripped away from you?"_

_"I've felt it. You forget, my soul was at peace once. And then it was forced back into me. And I had to suffer through grief and regret every moment of every day. Do you realize what it's like to feel that? It's worse than dying, Buffy, because I'm in a state that's worse than death. I'm not dead, but I'm not alive. Everyone I love, they'll all die before I do."_

_"And you think my life is any better?" She answered, still keeping her eyes on him. "I'm the Slayer. We're not known for our long life-spans."_

_"But you're alive. You're breathing, your heart is beating in your chest, you can walk into the light and not burn. You have all the things I can never have." _

_"But I don't want them!" She said, her voice breaking as it rose in volume. "I don't want them anymore! I just want to be at peace."_

_"You want to die." He said plainly, cutting to the heart of the matter. As she looked up at him, Buffy felt something click in her mind. That was what she wanted, no matter how many times she tried to deny it, it was true. She wanted to go back._

_"You can't. You won't." He continued, still holding her shoulders. "You won't die because you're stronger than that. You won't take the easy way out of things."_

_"I won't?" She said, the statement sounding more like a question as it left her lips._

_"You don't know it, Buffy, but you're strong. You're the strongest person I've ever met. You've done things that anyone else would have turned away from. And you went further, you gave your life to save the world when it needed it most. But you're here now, and there's purpose in that. You're here for a reason, just like you always were."_

Her body still tense as her eyes opened, Buffy felt like dying inside. The sensation was worse now, with Angel's words still so fresh in her mind. Reaching for the cross around her neck, she tore it off, effectively breaking the chain and gripping it in her hand.

"I don't want this." She said, speaking not of the cross itself, but of the reasoning behind it. How such a piece of jewelry could harm the very things she had been destined to kill, to wipe out from the face of the Earth itself. There were untold amounts of girls in the world, but she had been the one that had been chosen. The one girl in all the world had to be the one that had simply wanted a normal life. Faith had also been chosen, but she had forfeited the role to her, had practically forced her to take over once the girl had chosen to go to jail, to make amends for her crimes.

The tears already streaming down her cheeks, Buffy felt the sand underneath her clenched fists as she dropped the cross. As she threw the sand into the sky, ignoring the falling remnants of what she had held.

"I DON'T WANT IT! DO YOU HEAR ME?!" She screamed, wanting to make sure that the Powers That Be could hear her. "TAKE IT BACK!"

_It's who you are._

"JUST TAKE IT BACK!" She threw more sand, her fists always returning to the ground to grab more to toss into the sky.

_It's what you do._

"I DON'T WANT THIS ANYMORE!" More tears were streaming down her cheeks, and her chest was filled with sobs as she spoke.

_Because you're stronger than anyone I've ever known_


	4. The Route Home

**Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy or any of the characters. They belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.**

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**Chapter 4**

As the sun's fresh rays of a new day pressed down on her face, Buffy could feel the tears still staining her cheek as she opened her eyes. She still felt horrible, and the small pain inside her chest still hadn't faded as she had hoped it would. The cross, its chain still broken, lay a few feet away from her, half-buried in the sand. Reaching out for it, she grabbed it and held it in her hand, the cool metal matching the temperature of her palm perfectly.

"It never goes away, doesn't it?" She said aloud, with no-one around to answer her question. Her head still buried against the blanket, she closed her eyes for a moment as the wind picked up slightly, and a few particles of sand flew into the air. As she got onto her feet, brushing the sand off of her face and out of her hair, she gathered all of her things up, and started out again, following the directions scrawled on the map Giles had given her. She couldn't take any more of this, and she wanted to go home, even if it meant having to be up that fake exterior again. These dreams out here were only making her feel worse, even if Angel had made her feel safe within them.

"Dreams aren't real." She said, the sand scattering beneath her steps. Sunnydale was hardly even a speck on the distant horizon, and as she passed by the numerous rock formations and sand mounds that she had seen a million times before, she kept her head down low, partially in an attempt to avoid being blinded by the overhead sun. She had seen the effects the Sun could have on anything, from humans to demons, and in all of them, the effects may have differed, but they all remained the same. It burned. To varying degrees.

She had seen vampires burn up before, until they had exploded into dust. It had been slower than the simply stake to the heart, but in a way, it was more satisfying to see them burn up. When she had been younger, the simple fact that she had taken pleasure in that had frightened her, reminding her of how the Master and the Mayor had taken pleasure in causing death and destruction upon masses of people.

As she passed another large mound of sand, she began to see the rocks that Giles had dropped her off at, the road leading off into the distance like the Yellow Brick Road in the Wizard of Oz. Sighing again, she continued down the mound, and eventually the sand underneath her feet gave way to rock, and she made her way to the road, already having the route to home memorized in her head.


End file.
